6 definitions by TheGreenLing
by TheGreenLing June 6, 2007
Chimpanzee, often shortened to chimp, is the common name for the two extant species in the genus Pan. The better known chimpanzee is Pan troglodytes, the Common Chimpanzee, living primarily in West, and Central Africa. Its cousin, the Bonobo or "Pygmy Chimpanzee" as it is known archaically, Pan paniscus, is found in the forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Congo River forms the boundary between the two species.
by TheGreenLing June 6, 2007
A monkey is any member of two of the three groupings of simian primates. These three groupings are the New World monkeys, the Old World monkeys, and the apes. The New World monkeys are classified within the parvorder Platyrrhini, whereas the Old World monkeys (superfamily Cercopithecoidea) form part of the parvorder Catarrhini, which also includes the apes. Thus, scientifically speaking, monkeys do not form a "natural group", in that the Old World monkeys are actually more closely related to the apes than they are to the New World species. There are 264 known extant species of monkey. Because of their similarity to monkeys, apes such as chimpanzees and gibbons are often called monkeys in informal usage, though biologists don't consider them to be monkeys. Conversely, due to its size (up to 1 metre) the Mandrill is often thought to be an ape, but it is actually an Old World monkey. Also, a few monkey species have the word "ape" in their common name. Because they are not a single coherent group, monkeys do not have any particular traits that they all share and are not shared with the remaining group of simians, the apes.
by TheGreenLing June 6, 2007
by TheGreenLing May 9, 2011
Gibbons are the small apes in the family Hylobatidae. The family is divided into four genera based on their diploid chromosome number: Hylobates , Hoolock , Nomascus , and Symphalangus. They occur in tropical and subtropical rainforests from northeast India to Indonesia and north to southern China, including the islands of Sumatra, Borneo and Java. The extinct Bunopithecus sericus is an extinct gibbon or gibbon-like ape which, until recently, was thought to be closely related to the Hoolock gibbons.
by TheGreenLing June 6, 2007
The Mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx) is a primate of the Cercopithecidae (Old-world monkeys) family, closely related to the baboons and even more closely to the Drill. Both the Mandrill and the Drill were once classified as baboons in genus Papio, but recent research has determined that they should be separated into their own genus, Mandrillus. The Mandrill is the world's largest species of monkey. The word mandrill means "man-ape".
by TheGreenLing June 6, 2007